


The Life and Times of a Temporary Employee

by Kyra



Category: Arrested Development, The Office (US)
Genre: Co-workers, Crossover, F/M, Gen, M/M, Sitcom Fic, Sitcomathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-03
Updated: 2006-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a paper company in Pennsylvania, and the one man who brought change to them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life and Times of a Temporary Employee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/gifts).



> Written in 2006 for the Sitcomathon fic exchange. Exhumed in honor of the upcoming triumphant return of the Bluths. Set during that great Office heyday, season 2.

_This is the story of a paper company in Pennsylvania, and the one man who brought change to them all._  
  
\--  
  
When the documentary producers sat the new temp down to explain the situation he waved them off before they could get into any of the usual things: legal ramifications, the normal concerns about privacy, explaining what exactly the show was about. After every spouse or delivery person who came to an event they were more than used to reluctance, but he grabbed a pen, almost worryingly blasé.  
  
“Yadda yadda, camera guys everywhere, I know the drill. Where’s the release form?”  
  
The PAs looked at each other and made the face that meant, someone is going to make us look into this.  
  
**  
  
Gob sauntered into the office at 9:37, hands in his pockets.  
  
“Can I help you?” Pam asked.  
  
Gob leaned over the desk, hands still in his pockets, letting his voice go silky.  
  
“That depends,” he said. “I’m the new, what do you call it, temp.”  
  
“Oh!” said Pam. “Um, right. Let me just get—“  
  
“We-he-elll,” said Michael from the door of his office. Gob spun around and Pam shut her mouth. “Is this the new temp? Fresh blood?”  
  
///  
  
 _Against the conference room blinds, Ryan looked at the camera.  
  
“I guess they finally hired a new temp,” he said. The camera stayed on him. “…Good luck to him.”_  
  
///  
  
“Gob,” Gob said. “Gob Bluth.” He took a hand out of his pocket and shook Michael’s.  
  
“Jobe!” said Michael. “As in, I ain’t got no jobe, so I’d better go to Dunder Mifflin.” He beamed at himself. “Right?”  
  
Gob chuckled awkwardly and put his hand back in his pocket.  
  
“Michael Scott,” said Michael. “Regional manager.”  
  
///  
  
 _“What, so I just talk into this thing?” Gob asked. “Fine. Why is it always a Michael?”_  
  
///  
  
“Sorry I’m late,” said Gob. “Transportation problems.”  
  
In the parking lot, Gob’s Segway sat in the space beside Michael’s Sebring, the latter with a medium-sized dent in the side.  
  
///  
  
 _“Yeah,” said Gob. “Apparently if they recall all the scooters and you don’t take yours back, they make it go crazy and start throwing you off it.”_  
  
///  
  
At reception, Kelly stopped talking abruptly when Ryan got up to use the printer. She followed him with her eyes the whole way over, and watched him grab his paper out of the tray, while Pam looked at her. When he passed her on the way back to his desk, she burst into tears.  
  
///  
  
 _”Yeah,” said Pam. “Apparently Kelly and Ryan broke up.” She paused. “It’s… awkward.”_  
  
///  
  
Gob fidgeted in the chair across from Michael’s desk.  
  
“Well,” said Michael. “I won’t lie to you, we have a lot of fun around here. Looooots-o-fun.” He picked up a deck of trick playing cards and thoughtfully spread it out between two hands. The cards dangled in a long string, and Gob’s eyes lit up.  
  
“You like magic?” he said.  
  
///  
  
Pam looked up sharply at the loud bang from Michael’s office, and relaxed when it was followed by giddy laughter. After a moment, the door opened and Michael came out, followed by Gob, whose shirtcuffs were slightly singed.  
  
“Attention, everyone,” he said. Stanley picked up his phone. “I want you all to make our newest employee feel especially at home in the Dunder Mifflin family.” He clapped Gob on the shoulder. “ _This_ is a man who understands the place of fun in the workplace.” Gob smiled. Angela rolled her eyes.  
  
**  
  
In the break room, Kelly watched Gob contemplate the vending machine options.  
  
“Aren’t you kind of old to be a temp?” she asked.  
  
“You must be really desperate for money to come here,” said Stanley without looking up from the soda machine buttons.  
  
“ _Actually_ ,” said Gob. “My family is in real estate. In Newport Beach. Ever heard of it?” He looked around the break room, with its low-ceiling, and the burned out light in the corner. “We could buy and sell a place like this.”  
  
“Ohmigod,” said Kelly. “Are you here, like, undercover? To scope out the company?”  
  
Gob looked thoughtful.  
  
///  
  
 _Gob glowered at the camera. “Apparently,” he said. “If you get stuck in bumf*$# &, Pennsylvania, and your stupid brother is in charge back home, he won’t send you the money for a first-class flight. Because that wouldn’t buildcharacter.  
  
“Anyway,” he added. “How hard could this be? I’ve totally worked in an office before.”_  
  
///  
  
In Michael’s office, Michael laughed loudly, followed a second later by Dwight, at something Gob was doing with the wastebasket.  
  
Pam hesitated in the doorway.  
  
“Um, Michael, there’s a call—“  
  
“Not now, Pam,” he said. “Can’t you see we’re busy with Gob’s illusions?”  
  
“Well, I just—is that a pigeon?”  
  
“No,” said Gob. “… yes. Doves are expensive.”  
  
**  
  
Gob’s new desk was Ryan’s old desk, directly across from Meredith. Meredith was watching him with a faint expression of disgust as he leaned back in his chair and trickled M&Ms into his mouth.  
  
“Gooooob,” said Michael. “What do you say to a first-day celebratory lunch? I know a great place.”  
  
“Oh, sorry, Michael,” Gob said, bouncing backward in the chair. “Dwight’s getting me a sandwich from Cojino’s.”  
  
Michael’s smile slowly faded.  
  
“He what?”  
  
“Hey!” said Dwight, coming into the office out of breath, a bag in one hand and a drink tray in the other. “I didn’t know if you wanted Coke or Sprite so I got both.”  
  
“Nice,” said Gob, sitting upright so quickly the chair made a noise of protest. “Right over here.”  
  
“… Dwight,” said Michael. “Where’s—do you have my… lunch?”  
  
“Oh, sorry, Michael,” Dwight said. “Did you want lunch?”  
  
///  
  
 _“Simple,” said Dwight. “Just covering my bases. Rumors are flying, and if this branch is to move under new management, then I want to be under him right from the start.” He paused. “Plus his magic tricks are way better than Michael’s.”_  
  
///  
  
 _”An office,” said Michael, “is like a ship. Like a pirate ship. And if there’s one thing those pirates were always doing, besides drinking rum and wearing eyeliner, it was mutiny…ing. That’s why those captains always had to be so mean. Use it or lose it.”_  
  
///  
  
“Look,” said Michael. “I’m not sure this is working out.”  
  
“What?” said Gob.  
  
“This temp… thing,” said Michael. “Maybe I should just call the agency.”  
  
“No!” said Gob. “What? Why would you do that?”  
  
“You know,” said Michael, dropping his eyes to the pile of paperclips he was toying with. “This and that.”  
  
“This is total b.s.,” said Gob, standing. “You can’t take this away from me.”  
  
“But I can,” said Michael. “Anyway. I’m just thinking about it.”  
  
“O ho,” said Gob. “The big man is just thinking about it. Wieeeeelding his power over the heads of everyone. Michael always has to be the boss. Just beca—what,” he said, looking back over his own shoulder. “What are you looking at?”  
  
Michael straightened up and looked away from his open door.  
  
“No, uh, nothing.”  
  
Gob followed his gaze, to where Kelly was leaning against Ryan’s desk, slowly handing him pieces of paper, and over-explaining each one. Ryan took each one quickly, head down.  
  
“Ah-ha,” he said, in a voice he obviously thought of as under his breath. “So that’s how it is.”  
  
“Why don’t you go see if Pam has some filing for you to do?” said Michael.  
  
///  
  
 _”I hope the branch doesn’t get bought by some fancy Californian company,” Phyllis said, looking worried. “I burn easily.”_  
  
///  
  
Gob swooped around the pillar behind the copy machine and leaned casually against it.  
  
“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”  
  
“Um, fine?” said Kelly, pausing with the staple remover halfway to the papers in her hand.  
  
“Nice, uh, shirt,” said Gob, and Kelly’s face lit up.  
  
“Really?” she said. “Because I wasn’t totally sure if paisley was too, you know, whatever for this season, but I just thought the sleeves were _so_ cute—“  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” said Gob. “That’s great. Listen, do you want to do something after work?”  
  
“What, like on a date?” said Kelly.  
  
“Whatever,” said Gob.  
  
“Oh,” said Kelly. “Um.” She looked over at Ryan, who was watching Dwight measure his pencils, a look of tired loathing on his face. “Okay.”  
  
///  
  
 _”The thing about guys,” said Kelly. “Is that if they get too complacent, they don’t appreciate you anymore, and then you have to get their attention by making them jealous. Everyonesays so.” She bit her lip. “It will totally, totally work. Don’t you guys think so?”_  
  
///  
  
 _“What?” said Michael. “Ryan and Kelly? Really?” He looked away from the camera, out the window of his office, thoughtfully. “I always thought he could do better.”_  
  
///  
  
“No,” said Ryan, trying to pull papers out from where Michael was sitting on them, perched on the corner of his desk. “No, I’m fine.”  
  
“Are you sure?” said Michael, voice dripping with sympathy. “Break-ups can be tough. Sometimes you just need to let it all out. It’s okay to cry.”  
  
“No,” said Ryan, “I really don’t think—“  
  
“Michael!” said Gob heartily, arm around the neon pink of Kelly’s coat-clad shoulder. “You don’t mind if we take off a little early, do you? Good man.”  
  
“What?” said Michael. “You two are…”  
  
“Don’t try to stop this, Michael,” Gob said. “It’s too late for that. No matter how you might feel.”  
  
“Um, okay,” said Michael.  
  
“Bye, Ryan,” said Kelly loudly. Ryan stared very intently at something just to the left of his mousepad.  
  
“… _wow_ ,” said Michael, before they were quite out the door. He nudged Ryan’s shoulder. “You must be just—there is no _way_ I am not taking you out for a drink now.”  
  
Ryan looked hopeless.  
  
**  
  
At 8:53 the next morning, Gob got out of the passenger door of Kelly’s car in the parking lot. He looked around nervously. Kelly pushed the alarm set button on her keychain twice, so the horn beeped in quick succession.  
  
**  
  
“Yep,” said Gob, leaning on Michael’s doorjamb. “We totally did it. Sorry if that’s hard for you to hear. But I bet you’ll think twice about calling the temp agency now.”  
  
**  
  
“So, ohmigod, of _course_ we didn’t do it,” said Kelly to Pam in the kitchen. Pam, still in her coat, sneaked a quick, longing glance around Kelly at the coffee pot. “That’s third-date fodder at _least_ , everyone knows that. We just made out a little. To, like, second base. Over the clothes. That seems reasonable, right?” Pam opened her mouth, then closed it again as Kelly went on. “And then I let him sleep on my couch because he said his hotel reservations fell through, and all he had to ride around on was that weird scooter thing.” Pam smiled noncommittally and edged toward the cabinet where the mugs were kept.  
  
“Hey, so,” Kelly went on, voice faltering momentarily. “Did Ryan say anything after we left yesterday?”  
  
**  
  
When Gob got out of Michael’s office, he found that the chair was gone from his desk. Meredith, wearing sunglasses, pointed behind him. Kelly waved from the back partition.  
  
“Hey!” she said as he tested out the chair at the desk behind hers. “I thought you could come sit back here and we could talk about that Desperate Housewives from last night. Nobody here watches it except Michael, but now I know for sure you saw it last night too! What did you think about the—“  
  
///  
  
 _Gob looked at the camera.  
  
“I’ve made a huge mistake.”_  
  
**  
  
 **ON THE NEXT _The Office_** :  
  
Toby shook his head slowly.  
  
“I just don’t think I’m cut out to be sawn in half, Gob,” he said.  
  
Gob threw his hands in the air, almost taking off his ear with the saw.  
  
“Oh, come _on_.”  
  
\--  
  
“Yogurt?” Creed said, holding his spoon out toward Pam. “I made it myself. Yak milk. Delicious.”


End file.
